Dear Friends and Family,
We are sooooo fricking back babes!!!!!!!
It has been a long, long time since I updated this blog! Like, over a year! When I got back from the road trip in 2023 and finished the blog at the beginning of 2024, I thought I would at least write an epilogue series about how to plan and enjoy your own cross-country roadtrip.
Buuuuuuuut,
A lot has happened in my life!
I got a new job!
I went to ten weddings! (Seven last year!) (I officiated four of them!)
I went to Finland! (Hyvää päivää kirvesvartta!)
I ran in the High Heel Drag Race twice!
I turned THIRTY!
Yeah! Yeah it was a lot! A LOT a lot!!!
It really is astonishing how quickly you can get looped into your life again. Maple seeds whirlwind into washing machines into dryers into metro trips into pay periods into PTO into twice-weekly podcast updates. All loops, all over, all the time. Where are they all going?
All of this is to say that once I was back from the road, it was very easy to live in a way that was completely disconnected from the mental presentness that living on the road engendered.
I regret this somewhat.
This Prologue will be a two-part post in the style of my old blog updates, and I hope these posts will make you see why I have started up the blog again.
But let’s get back to that present! A present of 3 months ago, at the end of September:
One of the few things I’ll put being a vegetarian on pause for.
Oh yeah! I’m mostly a vegetarian now, by the way. I’ll eat some meat if it’s around, but I don’t seek it out or cook with it anymore (chicken stock, andouille sausage, and various fish notwithstanding).
As you can tell by the In-n-Out, I was off to Cal-i-forn-i-a! Where bowers of flowers all bloom in the sun, and each morning, at dawning, little birdies sing and everything.
Even little flowers in the sea will wave to you.
I was in the Bay Area for two weeks for a training for work, which we are not going to discuss because you are probably already aware of why I won’t want to discuss work. But besides the training at Coast Guard Island up in Alameada, I had two weekends free to enjoy exploring!
And explore I did.
There were a couple things on my last roadtrip that I planned on seeing, but didn’t for various reasons. I ended up cutting out the entirety of the Canadian portion of the trip because I couldn’t leave the country while my security clearance was processing. I also beat feet across the plains to get back to Michigan by August 11th for my high school’s cross-country team alumni race and ended up skipping Boundary Waters and the north coast of Lake Superior. But the thing I most regretted not seeing on the 2023 trip was Big Sur:
Big Sur is the absolutely astounding portion of Pacific Coast between San Luis Obispo and Monterey. It is one gigantic rampart bursting out of the sea and buttressing North America for more than a hundred miles (maybe more than two hundred when you consider all the twists and turns in the road!). This is the Pacific Coast Highway.
In 2023, I intended to reach the Pacific around Morro Bay and then drive the PCH north, but delays in getting to Yosemite and a road closure midway on the PCH compelled me to skip it, and reach the sea at Santa Cruz instead.
That road closure was resolved, but later, an entirely different portion of the highway fell into the freaking ocean which closed the road south of Slates Hot Springs. Not a problem for me though! I was driving in from the north now and had plenty of time to enjoy the long u-turn.
And what a u-turn it offered! The entire coast here is pockmarked with tiny, near-vertical sea cliffs and bays. Where the water is deep enough to get a boat in, they aren’t wide enough in which to turn around, and earned the name “dog harbors” from locals in the past.
As the land rises up from the sea, it flattens briefly and barely enough for the road. There are also dozens of pretty bridges built all over to cross the gaps and canyons:
The famous Bixby Creek Bridge.
And really, the land just never stops. Higher still above the road are towering redwoods:
It’s kind of impossible to describe just how big these trees are. And these are mostly second and third growth redwoods, not even virgin woods! It’s stunning how quickly entering the redwoods will take you from hot, sun-baked seacoast to misty, primeval forest. It feels colder, wetter, and older as soon as you enter in. The redwoods eventually peter out as you climb higher and higher; apparently they prefer the inlets where they can capture moisture from the sea fog.
Shorter, drier-acclimatized trees closer to the top of the mountains.
And at the top of that first front range of mountains?
Views for miles and days.
It’s just stunning. The beauty is in the overwhelm. Every turn, every angle, every lookout is some new awe-inspiring sight over the rest of the entire world. God, what a paradise!
The back half of this trail was an old fire road that was long closed to traffic. I didn’t see a single person the entire way on it, and this was a Saturday! Why wasn’t the whole Golden State out there right now enjoying all of this???
Eventually, I wound my way down to the coast, and back to the car, and back to Monterey where I was staying for the weekend. It was an absolutely amazing weekend, and just the first of two I had to enjoy out there!
That evening, as I walked along Monterey Bay, and looked out to Loma Pietra in the Santa Cruz Mountains, an old joy welled up within me. It was an exploratory joy: joy made out of traipses and tumults through new places and new experiences. The feeling of living free and unencumbered, no deeds to do and no promises to keep, nothing between me and the world but two inches of pavement and the soles of my shoes. It was enticing; it was intoxicating. It was a sweet siren song blown in on a sea breeze from across the world. It was the feeling of being one with the world.
I did not realize how much I wanted that back.
That’s all for now,
Stay well everyone,
Evan 💙